What if the Netherlands used FPTP?

politics mapview ggpol

Examining the difference in election outcome between FPTP and D’Hondt (proportional representation).

Thomas Zwagerman https://twitter.com/thomzwa (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology)https://www.ceh.ac.uk/
03-24-2021

In this short article I am exploring what the Dutch political landscape would look like if it operated under a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

The election data for the Netherlands was downloaded from the Kiesraad. The shapefile was downloaded from ESRI NL.

Results Tweede Kamer Verkiezing 2021

These are the 2021 results summarised:

party votes seats percentage
VVD 2279126 34 22.3
D66 1565862 24 15.3
PVV 1124482 17 11.0
CDA 990601 15 9.7
PvdA 597192 9 5.8
SP 623371 9 6.1
FvD 523083 8 5.1
GROENLINKS 537308 8 5.3
PvdD 399751 6 3.9
ChristenUnie 351275 5 3.4
DENK 211238 3 2.1
JA21 246620 3 2.4
SGP 215249 3 2.1
Volt 252480 3 2.5
BBB 104319 1 1.0
BIJ1 87238 1 0.9
Partij 50PLUS 106702 1 1.0

Let’s start with examining the composition of the Tweede Kamer - under a proportional representation (D’Hondt) system. This is what the Tweede Kamer looks like currently:

Now let’s have a look at what it would look like under First-past-the-Post (FPTP), with one MP elected per Gemeente.

Now, there are a couple of obvious differences:

But also some obvious caveats:

Election results on a map

We can also show these results on a map - this in an interactive map which allows you to explore the individual election results for each Gemeente.